A web writin’ friend responds to a Facebook comment:
comment: Women of NY, I am begging you to please wear age and body appropriate shorts and skirts. I can’t begin to express how tired I am of being confronted with extreme jiggle and cellulite each time I walk out the door! Adding an inch or two to your clothing isn’t too much to ask is it?
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dear commenter,
this group of humans we call “women”? they have fat on their bodies. this is normal and healthy and good.
this fat? it jiggles sometimes. and due to the influences of not only estrogen, but also catecholamines, insulin, and various thyroid hormones, in 90% of post-pubertal women, it manifests as cellulite. OMG WTF HELLA NASTY, RIGHT?
you, commenter, appear to be exempt from this universal female biology. you have a tiny waist and (i assume) cellulite-free legs. this much is undeniable: you are fucking beautiful. because of that, you are privileged in ways i will never understand.
your message is personal. i have cellulite. my thighs jiggle. i can’t always find clothes to harness, squeeze, and cover my fat in aesthetically pleasing ways. i’m sure you’re oblivious to this fact: when you talk shit on women’s cellulite, you are talking about me.
i am 5’11″ and i weigh one hundred and fifty five pounds (COLLECTIVE GASP OF HORROR!). according to the fashion industry, i am a BIG, FAT FUCK. they probably think i shouldn’t even be allowed to wear clothes, which is why they don’t make shirts long enough to cover my corpulent belly.
so you know what i do? i refuse to give a fuck about fashion, or propriety, and i put my energy into something more worthy of my time. i refuse to spend hours wading through the sweatshop-sewn wares of stores whose clothes don’t fit me anyway. i let my bellyfat peek through between my shirt and my jeans, which themselves are unflattering to my jiggly thigh fat. and i march my fat ass out the door, and i refuse to think about it for even another second.
commenter? don’t you dare tell me what i can and cannot wear – what i can and cannot do — as a result of my not fitting your beauty standard. don’t act like it’s some kind of personal affront when i decide to press my untanned flesh into a two-piece and enjoy a day at the beach. i think i look fucking hot, and if you don’t agree, well then you can go fuck yourself.
i’m so sick of denying myself the opportunity to live because i’m not yet skinny enough. i have spent my whole life trying to fit my natural frame into the mold of your waifish body. i have dieted, i have starved, i have fainted in the gym and in the streets. and you know what i realized? my body will not conform your beauty ethic, not ever. there is no runway model inside of me, waiting to jump out the moment i diet hard enough. i am just BIG.
so you know what? i quit. this whole idiot dieting game, this arbitrary standard of thinness, i refuse to play. i eat healthy food and i ride my bike for hours on end and then i work to accept the balance that my body chooses for itself. and it ain’t easy, because at every turn, i am bombarded with misogynistic messages just like yours.
if, for whatever reason, you think i’m skinny enough to be exempt from your attack, then you’re certainly talking shit about my friends, who i find sexy as hell because their bodies have curves. this message is for them, too, for everyone who has been told they’re “too big to be wearing that” by some self-righteous, skinny jerk like you.
facts: a full 50% of 11-year-old girls think they are too fat. 80% of 13-year-old girls have at one point been on a weight-loss diet. girls this young should be playing with their friends, writing secret-admirer letters to boys, climbing trees and doing cartwheels. instead, they’re consumed with shame and self-hatred, that for many of them will manifest as life-threatening eating disorders in a few years. and this, this is fucking bullshit.
commenter, i have an important message for you. every time you want to criticize anyone else’s body or fashion choices, i want you to SHUT THE FUCK UP. i’m dead serious, commenter: shut the fuck up. stop contributing to this toxic environment of body hatred. step outside your bubble of privilege and read some feminist writing on eating disorders, and when you think you’ve read enough essays, i want you to choke down a couple more. try to imagine how it feels to be me, or [any number of friends, names withheld], anyone else who doesn’t have a naturally “flawless” body, according to arbitrary magazine standards. try to step inside the mind of [friend], who is the skinniest motherfucker i know, but feels compelled to eat mustard packets to lose weight. think of us every time you want to pipe up with some snarky, misogynistic comment, shut the fuck up a little more.
i can’t in good conscience let a comment like yours go unchecked. i am angry, and it’s time that i stand up for myself.
I don’t know the person who made the comment, I only know the girl that reacted to it (who pens on a personal site under l’anguish) and blessed me with deep, deep sigh of content.
-CJ
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